Sunday, September 23, 2007

Country Music Stars Jumping Off George Bush's Bandwagon!

There are few institutions more 'conservative' than the ranks of the country music industry in the United States. Starting with the 9/11 attack, a number of country music stars have been singing about the 'red - white and -blue' and giving complete support to President Bush's idiotic foreign policy.

It turns out that with the plummeting popularity of Bush and his failed strategy, many of his former supporters are now having to 'cut and run' to salvage their own careers. No more so than with the country music industry which now realizes that an ideological attachment to George W. does not play well with music sales!

Of course Country has never been as ideologically monolithic as some people think - Johnny Cash was widely beloved by country fans - despite being unambiguously leftish in his views - Kris Kristofferson, The Dixie Chicks, Willie Nelson - the list goes on.

The huge rightward surge of rural America was part of the exodus of the Reagan Democrats, the heartland working class switchover to the Republicans after the economic turmoil of the 70's.

Less easily acknowledged in America, it's part of the dog whistle racial politics the Republicans have used for years, where as Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone put it this month, Republicans are always willing to play to the base's concern about the 'lazy Negro' problem.

So yeah, there is a tendency to conservatism among country music creators and fans - some of it and them very ugly - but it isn't the only strain and there's been a noticeable climb down of late, to the extent that Toby Keith is now describing himself as a lifelong Democrat and claiming to have never supported the war.

The left needs the working class back and the working class need the left back. There's an undeniable and very destructive mutual distaste to overcome there. If the populists of the left don't speak to their concerns, paleo-con populists on the right like Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs will fill the void.